W. Curtis Preston reviews Solidigm’s solution to the gap left by Intel discontinuing its SSD offering Optane. Solidigm, created by SK Hynix after buying Intel’s NAND business, recently introduced the D7-P5810, a new ultra-fast SSD with impressive endurance and performance features. Solidigm is positioning this product in conjunction with their Cloud Storage Acceleration Layer as a viable replacement for Optane.
CTERA’s Proactive Solution to Ransomware
W. Curtis Preston evaluates CTERA’s proactive solution to malware, as presented at the last Storage Field Day. CTERA uses a hybrid storage system which monitors anomalies in user behavior as an early detection method while providing an immutable data copy stored in the cloud as a second layer of protection. If unusual behavior is detected, the system isolates the user and can recover any altered files swiftly from the ‘golden copy’ of the data.
The Truth Behind SaaS Data Recovery With W Curtis Preston
In this Gestalt IT Tech Talk, W. Curtis Preston and Stephen Foskett discuss the challenges of data backup in SaaS applications and the misconceptions about built-in data protection. Preston underlines that a provider’s backup capabilities often aren’t sufficient to meet necessary security standards, cautioning against confusing in-application rollback and other features with actual backup. The talk advocates for substantial investment in backup tools for important data, transforming this part of IT into a less cumbersome process and urging data control to be in user’s hands.
VMware Goes for Multi-Cloud Support With NSX+
W. Curtis Preston shares his insights on VMware’s presentation of NSX+ at Tech Field Day Extra at VMware Explore 2023. The evolution of NSX+ aims at providing comprehensive multi-cloud network management, with features such as policy management, network detection and response, load balancing, and migration services. Preston highlights the potential of NSX+ to manage not only ESX workloads across multiple clouds, but eventually native workloads too, reflecting VMware’s vision for a robust multi-cloud setup.
VMware SaaS-ifies HCX With HCX+
In this article, W. Curtis Preston examines VMware’s presentation at Tech Field Day Extra, specifically their novel HCX+ product. This cloud-based version of their HCX product aims to simplify operations and help customers navigate through their mobility and migration needs. The focus of HCX+ is to modernize enterprises by assisting a seamless, disruption-free migration—from on-prem vSphere to cloud services like VMware Cloud on AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure—and provide a cohesive view of a large VMware deployment.
AMD Faster, Cheaper, and Greener Than Intel and ARM CPUs, Says AMD
Curtis Preston revisits AMD’s presentation at Tech Field Day Extra at VMware Explore and discusses AMD’s EPYC CPU outperforming most Intel CPUs – offering greater speed for less cost. The power efficiency of AMD CPUs particularly caught his attention as they deliver equivalent, if not better, performance whilst consuming less power, making them a sustainable and cost-effective choice. Despite competition from ARM, Preston’s conversation with Jason Collier revealed AMD’s resilience in the cloud-native space and he recommends that those building servers consider AMD for a faster, cheaper and greener option.
VMware Goes for Multi-Cloud Support With NSX+
Curtis Preston shares his insights on VMware’s evolution, specifically its NSX+ product, following their Tech Field Day Extra presentation at VMware Explore 2023. VMware has launched NSX+, which incorporates five key services, including policy management, flow visualization, network detection, response, orchestrating load balancers, and a migration service, aiming to provide effective management across multiple clouds. Right now, NSX+ focusses on managing ESX workloads on several clouds, but future plans aim to manage native workloads, with VMware positioning itself as a centralized orchestrator for multi-cloud setups.
Tech Field Day 19: Druva vs. The Competition
In this posts, Druva’s W. Curtis Preston (and one time Field Day delegate) writes up how he felt Druva compared to some of the competition at Tech Field Day. Their all-SaaS all-cloud data protection solution is certainly unique, we’ll let you read for yourself to make up your mind. Be sure to check out the full video of their presentation to get all the details.
Tech Field Day 19 – (Fairly) Full Disclosure
Dan Frith is a familiar site at the delegate table for Storage Field Day, but last month he was able to attend his first Tech Field Day, seeing presentations from across data center verticals. In this post, Dan outlines what was provided during the event, where he went, and gives an impression of the overall Field Day event experience.
Druva acquires CloudRanger, expands backup capabilities to AWS
Max Mortillaro looks at Druva’s acquisition of CloudRanger, which offers a data protection solution for AWS. Max got to see a lot from Druva at their recent Cloud Field Day presentation, and thinks the acquisition will offer a nice compliment to the company’s existing Data Management as a Service portfolio.
What it was like presenting at Cloud Field Day
W. Curtis Preston experienced an interesting situation at Cloud Field Day last month, presenting at an event after being a delegate. The experience on the other side of the table definitely was more stressful, and Curtis provides some wonderful insights from the experience. Overall, he found Druva’s message was received by the delegates, but he also highlights what he would have changed in hindsight.
Is a Cloud Gateway Enough?
For W. Curtis Preston, simply having the ability for a storage system to store data in the cloud isn’t news anymore. It’s to be expected. What’s more useful is a way to address multiple cloud site. Amazon might be the current market leader, but a storage solution shouldn’t assume you’re only going to use a single source for cloud storage. A good cloud gateway should address that, as well as letting you compute where your storage is at. It’s an interesting way to reevaluate how we judge cloud gateways going forward.
Getting Object Storage Ready for the Enterprise – Scality Briefing Note
W. Curtis Preston was at Storage Field Day in October with Scality to hear about their latest and greatest. In this blog post, he reviews what Scality is offering in their Ring 6.4 release. It offers built in encryption with a third-party key management system included. Curtis thinks this is a much better solution for an object storage company, instead of trying to invent their own key management. It also includes a number of AWS integrations, as well as chargebacks and health checks. Additionally Scality also released an open-source S3 server that runs in a Docker container. This can be used to test how well apps can write to S3 storage. Object storage in the data center has always required some hoops to jump through, and Scality looks to have some offerings to smooth this out quite a bit.
Creating Private Cloud Storage that you can Actually use
Curtis Preston discusses the problem with object-based storage: applications still need NFS or SMB access. He goes on to discuss the need for cloud gateways, and the added benefits they have for hybrid cloud solutions.
Not all “Inline” Dedupe is actually Inline – and it matters
Not all “Inline” Dedupe is actually Inline – and it matters